The Oceans Between Us: A gripping and heartwrenching novel of a mother's search for her lost child after WW2

by Gill Thompson

Genres: Historical Fiction; World War II; Women's Fiction; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

Inspired by heartrending true events, a mother fights to find her child in this riveting debut novel. 'A warm-hearted tale of love, loss and indefatigable human spirit' Kathryn Hughes 'A mother's loss and a son's courage... A heartrending story that spans the world' Diney Costeloe 'A heartrending story' Jane Corry For readers of Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, The Letter by Kathryn Hughes, and Remember Me by Lesley Pearse. A woman is found wandering injured in London after an air raid. She remembers nothing of who she is. Only that she has lost something very precious. As the little boy waits in the orphanage, he hopes his mother will return. But then he finds himself on board a ship bound for Australia, the promise of a golden life ahead, and wonders: how will she find him in a land across the oceans? In Perth, a lonely wife takes in the orphaned child. But then she discovers the secret of his past. Should she keep quiet? Or tell the truth and risk losing the boy who has become her life? This magnificent and moving novel, set in London and Australia, is testament to the strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love. Readers adore The Oceans Between Us... 'A beautiful tale of a mother's love. A wonderful book. Full of emotion, heart, joy and sorrow' Emma's Bookish Corner ' Heart-wrenching debut novel. A story based on actual events which will have you glued to the pages' Waggy Tales 'It has opened my eyes to the injustice done to so many' Shaz's Book Blog 'I flew through this emotional book. I raged at just what some had to endure. But I also felt their bravery in finding justice for all children who suffered. Highly recommended ' Between My Lines 'A story that will touch every reader's heart. An absolute must-read ' By The Letter Book Reviews If you love this, you'll love The Child On Platform One by Gill Thompson, available now.

Release date: March 21, 2019

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 302

Sample

Even after all these years he still dreads plane journeys. The take off is the worst: the rush of tyres on concrete, the scream of engines, a crescendo of pressure in his ears.

There’s a light touch on his hand. He looks down. Her fingers on his white knuckles.

‘All right?’ she says.

He nods, then looks out of the window. The plane is climbing steeply, the runway already a biscuit-coloured blur. The landing gear folds itself in with a distant thump and the engine steadies to a low throb.

He wipes his forehead with the back of his sleeve and leans his head against the rest.

She squeezes his hand. ‘Well done. You’ll be fine now.’

Yes, he will be fine. He always is. But this time there is another anxiety. Not the journey but the destination.

He pats his jacket pocket and feels the firmness of the expensive cardboard against the warm wool. No need to take the invitation out again. He knows the words off by heart.

And suddenly he’s a young boy once more, excited to be going on a long journey to a land full of hope and opportunity. How was his eager twelve-year-old self to know what was really waiting for him?

He glances at his companion. They are deep into a long marriage; her face as familiar to him now as his own, her hair shorter than when they’d first met. His breath still catches at the sight of her. He reaches out to stroke her cheek. ‘I’m glad you’re here with me.’

‘Wouldn’t have missed it. It’s been a long time coming.’

He’s suddenly too choked to speak. He swallows and runs a finger round his shirt collar. ‘Forty years’ he says. His voice sounds hoarse.

‘Half a lifetime. But you got there in the end. Just as you said you would.’

The seat belt signs have gone off. She reaches under the seat, pulls a leather bag onto her lap, and reaches into it for her bottle of water. She passes it across to him.

He takes a long sip. She always knows the right thing to do.

‘I just wish I’d got there sooner. It’s too late for some people.’

‘Those who can will come. And remember who you’re doing this for.’

He nods, then turns to the window again. The horizon is striped with brilliant colours: turquoise, orange, green – all radiating from a fiery, sinking sun. They’ll soon be hurtling through a dark sky in their metal tube, for miles and miles until they reach Canberra. And the ceremony they will attend.

This day is the one he’s fought for. He closes his eyes and the faces of the past appear before him.

No one had listened to them then.

They would listen now.

They usually came at night. It was more frightening then.

From beyond the warm tangle of bedclothes, Molly heard a pulsing wail. She swung her legs out of the bed, wincing at the shock of cold linoleum, then tiptoed over to the window and tweaked the curtain. Should she risk looking out? She took a sharp breath, turned back the tiniest corner of the brown paper that covered the glass, and peered through. Beams of light criss-crossed the sky. They’d be searching for planes: bomb-heavy and approaching fast, no doubt. She’d have to wake Jack.

Flitting past the mirror, pewter-dull in the gloom, she caught her own ghost: white nightgown, dark hair frizzing round her face. Jack wouldn’t be alarmed, though. He was too used to this routine.

‘Mummy?’ His voice slurred with sleep.

‘Come on. Get up.’ She hated to haul him from the snug nest fugged with thumb-suck breath and the faint smell of milk. Really she should wake him properly and make him walk down the stairs. But he needed his sleep, poor lamb, so she tipped him over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift, his five-year-old body a dead weight, and staggered down. By the time she reached the kitchen table, she felt her back would break, and she thrust him underneath more roughly than she’d meant. He muttered, and curled himself into a ball.

Molly stumbled over to the cupboard and took out the basket of supplies she’d repacked after the last raid: a balaclava, a torch, Mick’s flat cap and a greasy pack of playing cards with the two of hearts missing.

She shoved it under the table. Jack was still quiet and the noises outside hadn’t increased. Dare she make some tea? She lit the ring, grateful for the sudden warmth, filled the kettle and put it on to boil while she searched for the flask. Perhaps some food, too? There was half a loaf in the bread bin. They’d have to eat it plain. She’d run out of butter, and jam was a distant memory. When she was a girl, her mother’s larder had gleamed with jars of preserves: redcurrant jelly, marmalade, quince jam, tomato chutney. Mum would spend all autumn picking, boiling and stirring and the air would be sweet with the tang of fruit and sugar. No chance of that now. The war had robbed them of luxuries, even home-made ones. But it was pneumonia that had stolen her mum, just after Jack had been born. And the last war had claimed her dad.

The shriek from the stove competed with the siren outside. Molly lifted up the kettle and poured the boiled water into the teapot. Another swift release of heat. She stirred it while the steam curled round her face. No time to warm the pot. She strained the dark liquid, added a dash of milk from the jug in the larder, then ducked under the table, clutching the flask.

Jack had sat up. His hair was brush-like, as usual, and despite the darkness turning everything monochrome, Molly knew the red spots on his cheeks would be fading in the cold air of the kitchen. He always got so hot in bed, burrowing under the covers like a dormouse. She eased the balaclava over his head and rammed the cap onto hers. Jack needed to stay warm; besides, the splinters sticking out from the table’s rough underbelly could hurt. She pulled him close and held him against her chest.

‘Is it the nasties?’ Jack asked, his words muffled by her nightgown.

‘Yes, love. Bombers probably. We’ll be all right under the table.’ Molly looked round the shadowy room. How many hours had they spent here, night after night, while the Luftwaffe did its worst? Sometimes, if there was a daytime raid, the Clarks let them share their Anderson shelter. If they’d lived over Balham way, they could have gone to the station. But Molly didn’t fancy the Underground. Or next door come to that. It was nice to be in their own house. She and Jack, safe in their den.

Jack didn’t ask about Mick any more. She’d told him about Dunkirk. ‘Daddy got on a boat to come home to us,’ she’d said, ‘but he never made it.’

‘Did the nasties eat him?’ Jack had asked once, halfway through a bedtime story.

‘Eat him! Whatever gave you that idea?’

He snuggled against her. ‘Bill said they eat babies.’

Molly winced. That Bill Clark was too old for his years. ‘Of course not. Daddy tried very hard to come back, but the sea was too strong. He’ll be looking after us from heaven now.’ She blinked away the image of Mick flailing in the watery darkness. She untied her locket and showed the photo inside to Jack. Best he remembered his dad as happy and smiling beneath his head of dark hair, as dark and full as Jack’s would be, though Mick’s was hair-cream-slick in the picture. But the other memories she kept inside: Mick cupping her face as he kissed her; putting his arm round her as he lit a cigarette in the darkness; and singing. Always singing. Sometimes she’d wake up to his voice: In Dublin’s fair city, Where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone. The words caressed her. And when, later on, she looked in the mirror, she’d still be smiling.

It was a rough old night. They barely slept for the noise: the banshee wail of the siren, the whistle and roar of the bombs, the crash and crack of falling masonry. The air was acrid. Once Molly was sure they’d taken a direct hit. There was the most almighty boom and the whole house shook. She put her hands over Jack’s ears, every muscle clenched, and waited for the explosion to rip them from their hiding place. But nothing happened. Molly’s heart was going like an ack-ack gun and her lips were paper-dry. She licked them with difficulty.

‘Are you all right, Jack?’ she whispered.

Jack’s eyes were huge in the darkness. He gave a slight nod, then nestled against her again. She kissed his warm hair, inhaling the little-boy scent of him, and felt herself relax. The sounds grew fainter.

By the time the all-clear sounded, it was morning. The windows blocked out any light but Molly could hear the cheeky-chappy lilt of the blackbirds’ song. A robin, too, chirping shyly. Probably the one she’d seen in the garden yesterday, digging for worms. Croydon would be springing to life again, as it did each time, no matter how badly it had been wounded during the night.

Sometimes she wondered if she should have sent Jack away. Every week, it seemed, a child from his class was packed off with a gas mask and a little brown case by a mother holding back tears as she waved from the platform. Jack would undoubtedly be safer in Hampshire or Dorset, the popular destinations for the evacuees, as the newspapers were calling them. But Molly couldn’t bear to think of another woman bringing up her son, cuddling him, cooking for him. She’d already lost Mick; she couldn’t lose Jack too. And who knew when this war might end? No, they’d stay together, come what may.

‘Wake up, Jacky-boy.’ He’d gone back to sleep eventually, foetus-like in the blanket, his light breaths a soft rhythm. He stirred and moaned. Molly crept out, her limbs stiff as wood in the chilly kitchen. She turned on the wireless and lit the ring under the kettle. The last dregs from the flask had been tepid. A hot cuppa would wake her up. That and a bit of music.

The wireless crackled, then issued a growling sound. Winston Churchill was giving another of his rousing speeches. Jack said he was boring and Molly privately agreed with him. No amount of blood, toil, tears and sweat would bring Mick back. She twiddled one of the knobs, her ear close to the machine, alert for any snatches of music. At last: ‘In the Mood’. That was better. She needed to shake down all this bile.

‘Come on, let’s dance.’ She reached under the table and pulled a yawning Jack to his feet. He stumbled as she tried to swing him around, so she just held his hands instead and swayed to and fro. All the time she was humming, enjoying the feeling of lightness as the hem of her nightgown flew out.

When the song finished, Jack flopped onto the kitchen chair. ‘I’m tired, Mummy.’

‘Watch me, then.’ It was the Andrews Sisters now: ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’. Molly grabbed a wooden spoon and joined in, striking a silly pose to make Jack laugh. But instead of laughing, he frowned, reaching out to turn down the wireless, as if he’d heard something. Molly stopped. Jack was right. There was a series of bangs close by. She switched off the music altogether. The sounds were big in the silence: boom-boom-boom.

‘Guns,’ she whispered, gulping down the saliva that pooled in her mouth. ‘Don’t move.’ Jack was already a statue, but just in case, Molly put her finger against her lips and tiptoed across the room. She held back the net and peered out of the window. Surely not again? Hadn’t they been through enough? But it was just Mrs Clark, her head in a turban, wielding a carpet beater. A dusty orange and red rug hung from the washing line, and their neighbour was bashing it for all she was worth. Molly laughed. ‘Mrs Clark must be doing her spring cleaning!’

Jack ran to look, then laughed too. Molly turned the music up again.

After Bill called for Jack to walk him to school, Molly stood on the doorstep watching the small figure in an overlarge blazer and carrying a brown gas mask case plodding down the road. ‘Look at me, Mummy. I’m a schoolboy,’ he’d said when he’d first tried on his uniform. It was a wrench to say goodbye after a night like that. Jack was briefly illuminated by watery sunlight before they disappeared round the corner. Something made Molly shiver as she turned to go inside.

Wearily she lit the copper in the kitchen, then trudged upstairs to collect the bundle of washing from the corner of her bedroom. Everything seemed to be covered in dust or soot these days. Whilst she waited for the water to boil, she made another pot of tea and sat at the kitchen table, thinking of Jack, as usual. It was a worry, the effect the war was having on him. She’d once caught him loading a catapult with some small metal balls he’d found in Mick’s old toolbox. ‘I can fight the nasties if they come,’ he’d told her. ‘That will teach them for getting my dad.’

‘We’ve got soldiers to fight for us,’ Molly had said, squatting down in front of him and pushing back a tuft of his hair. ‘I need you to help me in other ways.’

‘How?’

What do you say to a fatherless boy who is trying to be a man? ‘Like dancing with me,’ Molly had said finally, pulling him up and twirling him round.

The kitchen was thick with steam and the windows all foggy by the time she realised the copper had boiled. She stood up, rubbing her back, eased off her wedding ring and placed it on the windowsill. Then she started the washing routine: tip in the Lux, stir the water, add the clothes, boil, scrub the stains against the washboard, rinse. It was hard work, but at least it stopped her thinking. By the time she was ready to peg out the washing, her mind was lighter.

She opened the back door, balancing the basket of wet clothes on her hip.

And froze.

The garden was a scene of destruction: huge clumps of grass-encrusted earth lay everywhere. Flowerpots were shattered, plants strewn across what was left of the small lawn, the coal bunker in pieces, the washing line nowhere to be seen. And right in the middle was a deep gaping hole.

Like a sleepwalker, Molly put down the basket, inched over and peered down. Four blades of dirty metal in the shape of a cross, linked by thin rods. As though a huge monster had ploughed into the ground, head first, leaving only his tail visible.

Consciousness returned. ‘Mick!’ she screamed. No, not Mick. ‘Mrs Clark. Help!’ Silence from next door. Thank God Jack was at school. She ran into the house and stood in the kitchen panting, her hand against her chest. There’d been an unexploded bomb in Fairfield Road two weeks ago. It turned out to have a time delay on it. A Royal Navy unit had come over to defuse it, disaster averted. But this one could explode at any moment. She had to get help quickly or Jack would be robbed in one fell swoop of both his mother and his home. Where was the ARP warden? She sprinted into the house and out through the front door.

She was twenty yards down the road when the ground shook violently and a colossal explosion lifted her off her feet.

Kathleen glanced at her watch. Another hour and John would be home. She should be peeling potatoes, not looking out of the window. Just one more minute, then she must get on. It had poured earlier, but the sun was out now, heating the wet grass and releasing a fine mist from the lawn. She watched the raindrops dripping off the myrtle willows’ spiky leaves. When the light hit them, they looked like diamonds.

The Carter children were playing in their back yard. Scott, bossy as usual, was telling Chrissie to hurry up and finish on the swing; he wanted his turn. He pushed her hard and Chrissie squawked indignantly. Kathleen knew Chrissie would hate that; she liked to go at her own pace. Scott wiggled the swing, trying to dislodge his sister. Suddenly there was a loud wail: Chrissie had landed with a thump on the balding grass and was holding up her arm. Kathleen started, wondering if she should alert Jenny Carter. She hated to see poor little Chrissie lying hurt on the ground. The child needed to be picked up and cuddled. If she were her daughter, Kathleen would scoop her up in her arms and whisper to her until she stopped sobbing.

But Jenny just hollered, ‘Get up and don’t be such a cry-baby,’ out of the window, her Kiwi accent contrasting with the kids’ Aussie voices.

Kathleen put her hands against the glass. She wondered what she looked like from the other side, a sad face gazing out, like that of a child who’d been forbidden to play.

‘Butt out of those kids’ lives,’ John had said to her once. ‘You’ve got enough to do here without all that sticky-beaking.’ But had she really? What else was there but endless housework?

The sun had exposed a minute insect, previously camouflaged by the rain, creeping across the smooth surface of the window. Kathleen pulled her hanky from her pocket and bashed at the tiny dot. It crunched, and she gathered it into her handkerchief, breathed hard on the pane, then scrubbed at it. By the time she stood back, the window was blank again.

Five years of marriage had been time enough for the usual references to sprogs and tin lids to fade to an embarrassed silence. Friends left their children at home when they came to visit. Relatives stopped asking them to be godparents or even inviting them to christenings. No one wanted spectres at the feast.

Kathleen used the clean part of the hanky to dust their wedding photo. She carefully wiped the cloth over John’s image: broad shoulders, thin lips stretched for the camera, a proprietorial hand round the waist of his gauche bride in ivory Shantung silk. Were they once so young and hopeful? The picture looked lonely on the sill, as if waiting for companions. But none had come.

She wouldn’t have minded the sleepless nights or the sticky fingers on the furniture if she could’ve had a child of her own. With each month came a soaring spiral of hope, followed, a few days later by plummeting grief and loss. The pain was almost unbearable.

The doctor had advised her to keep a diary of her fertile times. She also used it to record her feelings at each month’s disappointment. Sometimes she wrote things in it about John.

John. Blast. Where had the last ten minutes gone? No time now to do the lamb in the oven as she’d intended; she’d have to fry it. She crouched down and reached inside the Coolgardie. The meat was at the back, two tiny chops wrapped in newspaper. They’d shrivel away to nothing in the pan. At least she’d managed to get a few old potatoes at the greengrocer’s. She’d have to cut the green out, but a pile of mash would fill the plate up a bit. And there should be a bit of gravy browning left from when she’d stained her legs that morning. She unhooked her apron from the back of the door and tied it over her grey blouse and tweed skirt. Then she took the knife out of the drawer and started peeling.

Leaving the fried chops resting on a plate covered with a cloth, and the spuds boiling on the stove, she dashed upstairs. Just time to powder her face, shiny from the steamy kitchen, and check her hair, still thankfully in its lacquered waves. John liked the house immaculate but wanted his wife to look as though she’d never broken a sweat.

In the lounge room, two brown-checked cushions sat either end of the dark-green sofa. Kathleen plumped them, stepped back to inspect the arrangement, then, on impulse, darted forward and moved one of the cushions a little further from its neighbour. The balance was lost.

On the dot of six, she heard a car in the drive. She smoothed her hair, removed her apron and went to stand in the hall. John came in, bringing with him the damp, stale air from outside. He jabbed a kiss at her cheek and grunted a greeting. She darted off to the kitchen to serve up the meal while he wandered into the dining room to make himself a drink. Dishing up the lamb chops and mash by the hatch, Kathleen saw him frown at the sofa and move one of the cushions to restore the symmetry. She smiled to herself.

Later, they sat, as usual, at either end of the mahogany table that shone with elbow grease.

John shovelled in a mound of potato. Grimaced. Swallowed. ‘Have you heard the latest?’

Kathleen shook her head. She rarely listened to the wireless these days. The news was seldom good.

‘It’s big.’ John moved his mat a fraction so the edge lined up with the end of the table.

Kathleen suppressed the urge to push it askew before she answered. ‘What’s happened?’

‘The bloody Nips have attacked again. Five midgets snuck into Sydney Harbour last night. We sank two of the shonky rats but they got a torpedo into the harbour wall.’

Kathleen inhaled sharply. ‘First Darwin, now Sydney. It might be us next.’

‘Perth’s too far west. We’re safe for now.’

‘Is that official? Did you learn it at the department?’

John’s face adopted its guarded look. ‘Can’t say.’ He resumed chewing, a slightly martyred expression on his face.

It wasn’t until she served pudding, an apple crumble made with windfalls from the Carters’ tree, that John spoke again. He scraped his spoon across the bowl and cleared his throat in that self-important way he had.

‘So, what did you do today?’ He glanced around the room as if checking it was tidy.

An unbidden image flashed into Kathleen’s mind: of outstretched arms and dancing feet. She snapped it off quickly. God forbid he should find her squandering her time on ‘self-indulgence’.

‘Shopping . . . cooking . . . cleaning,’ she intoned.

John nodded his approval. ‘The crumble’s nice.’ He moved the pepper pot fractionally closer to the salt cellar.

‘Yes . . . I managed to get some sugar. There’s enough to make a cake tomorrow.’

‘Good on ya.’

Kathleen sniffed. ‘Your mother overindulged that sweet tooth of yours!’

John chuckled. ‘That’s what mothers do, overindulge their kids. It’s not like I ever get spoiled here.’

As Kathleen stood up to stack the crockery again she realised how stiff her legs were. The keep-fit class she’d been to at the Lacey Street hall was telling on her muscles already. It had been going for a year but today was the first time she’d plucked up courage to attend. She’d enjoyed the camaraderie of the other women and the opportunity to shed her tight clothes in favour of the loose-fitting shorts and Aertex blouse she’d bought and hidden from John. The class was fun too. Her body hadn’t stretched and bent like that since she was a carefree girl. Instead of going straight home afterwards, she’d lingered in the park, breathing in the sweet, rain-soaked air. By the time she got back, the house had shrunk and she’d rushed to the window. Her trip out had reminded her how confined she was at home. She needed to reassure herself that the outside world still existed.

‘Any chance of a cuppa in here?’ John’s voice drew her back. Tight-lipped, she put the kettle on to boil.

As she carried in John’s tea, she realised she hadn’t asked him about his day.

John smiled smugly. ‘Not bad, darl. I spoke to the minister earlier. He enquired after you.’

He was looking at her; this was her cue, but she’d make him wait a little. She set down the china cup on the small table next to John’s chair before walking over to her own seat. Then she sat down and crossed her legs slowly before she asked the question: ‘Anything about that promotion?’

John reached out and straightened the spoon before picking up the cup and sipping the hot liquid. He leaned back slightly in his chair. Perhaps he too was playing games, or more likely just savouring the moment. ‘Should be sewn up pretty soon,’ he said.

‘That’s good. You’ve worked hard, John.’ It wouldn’t do to provoke him. If she made him wait too long for the compliment, he’d get tetchy. Better to endure his smugness than his temper.

‘Yep.’ John finished his tea and replaced the cup on its saucer. ‘Said he liked the way I keep everything shipshape. Apparently I’m the full quid.’

Kathleen tilted her head at him. ‘Give me your empties. I’ll take them through.’

John passed the crockery up to her and she went back into the kitchen to finish the washing-up. She took her time standing by the sink, immersing her hands in the soapy water. The kitchen had been done to her taste: pale green cupboards, cream walls and a beige-and-green block print on the linoleum floor. Everything was perfect except . . . She frowned at the three flying ducks on the wall. John had put them up there, spending hours measuring and positioning them. They were the only things he’d insisted on in the kitchen. Every time she saw them, she thought of those poor creatures making their bid for freedom. And John nailing them down.

By ten o’clock, they were ready for bed. Kathleen smeared cold cream across her face, luxuriating in the moisture seeping into her skin as it removed the day’s grime. The familiar scent took her back to her mother performing the same ritual. ‘Vanishing cream’, she’d called it. As a little girl, Kathleen had sat on her mother’s bed watching to see if she would disappear.

‘Try to be a good wife,’ Mother had said to Kathleen the day before she married John. ‘And a good mother too when the time comes.’ She’d tried. She’d really tried. Listlessly, she picked up her hairbrush.

John had been a golfing friend of her father’s, though younger than him. Father had engineered the marriage, as he engineered everything, eager to acquire an up-and-coming son-in-law. At first Kathleen had been flattered by the eager young civil servant keen to wine and dine her. She’d been surprised when he proposed so soon but had accepted without qualms. He seemed kind and appeared fond of her. And marriage would enable her to escape Father’s strict discipline. Of course Father hadn’t banked on them moving to Perth from Melbourne almost immediately after the wedding. What a shame the son he’d always wanted had disappeared from his life so soon. And Kathleen had realised too late that she’d merely gone from one domineering man to another.

It wasn’t as though he’d ever laid a finger on her, thank God. Kathleen had worked with a woman once who wore foundation an inch thick to hide the bruises from where her husband had hit her the night before. No, John’s methods were more subtle. A demeaning comment here, a disapproving look there. And that constant checking of the housework. She’d evened the score a bit earlier, though. She grinned at the memory of the repositioned cushion. Even though he’d moved it back, it had been a small victory.

She looked in the mirror. Without make-up, her face was the colour of the cake mix she’d whisk up tomorrow. Perhaps she should allow a little sun on her skin. A healthy glow would make her look more relaxed. She leaned forward and pinched her cheeks. Better than rouge. Her mother had taught her that trick. The redness spread and her face looked brighter.

A sound made her shift her gaze to John’s reflection. He was lying down reading a book, flicking its pages impatiently. The pink paisley cover looked familiar. She whipped round. He was studying her diary.

‘Tonight looks promising.’ The bedside lamp made hollows of his eyes.

She flushed, annoyed at the violation and embarrassed by his words. Unable to bring herself to speak out or criticise him, her anger turned towards herself, her stupidity. She was so careless. What other explanation was there for leaving the diary, with its telltale system of ticks and crosses, on the bedside table?

‘Give me that,’ she said, holding out her hand. John handed it over with a leer. Thank goodness he hadn’t seen what she’d written about him. At least she didn’t think so. She’d have surely known if he had. He’d have been furious. Fortunately it was only lust she saw on his face and not anger.

Intimacy was the last thing on her mind, but she couldn’t put off joining him in bed any longer. There was no escape. She smoothed down her cotton nightdress, removed her slippers carefully and laid them beside the bed for the morning.

Then she climbed slowly in beside him.

She opens the bedside cabinet and reaches deep inside. The wood is rough; small splinters graze her hand. But there’s nothing there. Why can she never find what she’s lost?

She shakes her head to loosen the buzzing in her ears. The bees have crawled in agai. . .